15 September 2023
The Urban Land Justice Gathering will take place from Thursday 21 September to Saturday 22 September at the District Six Homecoming Centre. This event takes place in partnership with Ndifuna Ukwazi, SERI-SA, PLAAS, and the District Six Museum.
This event will see the launch of the People’s Land Map – directly before the political party debate. This map will show the nearly 3000 parcels of public land that could be used for housing in Cape Town. This is counter to the myth that there is no space for more houses – the amount of land that is available for housing is bigger than the city of Barcelona:
The City of Cape Town owns the most vacant and underutilised public land in the municipality at 67,558,651m2 – this is the same size as roughly 9,500 soccer fields.
These figures beg the question : Why are people forced to wait on the housing database for decades or occupy land or buildings, when there is so much public land that could be used for affordable housing?
For the first time, Ndifuna Ukwazi will be providing a platform for politicians to speak directly to the people on their policies on Land and Housing – the failure of Land Reform cannot go unnoticed and must be accounted for and urgently addressed, as our needs for urban land and housing continue to escalate. This conversation will host:
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ANC – Mntuwoxolo Ngudle – ANCYL SG, MMC Water and Sanitation Service OR Tambo District Municipality
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DA – Carl Pophaim – Human Settlements MayCo Member for the City of Cape Town
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EFF – Ftr Kagiso Themba -EFF Provincial Command Team
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Good – Brett Herron – Secretary General
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RISE Mzansi -Axolile Notyala – Western Cape Convener
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Zackie2024 – Zackie Achmat – Independent Candidate
This significant conversation will be facilitated by the esteemed Refilwe Moloto, former host of Cape Talk’s Breakfast Show.
The programme will be supported by a range of artistic interventions, not limited to:
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Histories of land dispossession, resistance and reclaiming from the District 6 Museum, Constantia Heritage Education Project and Haroon Gunn-Salie’s Zonnebloem renamed.
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Experience Virtual Reality documentaries about living in Reclaim the City occupations – No Place But Here by Dylan Valley and Annie Nisenson and Excluded by Zacharia Mashele.
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The last 5 years of Reclaim the City and Ndifuna Ukwazi photography exhibition by Zacharia Mashele.
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Cissie Gool House Co-design exhibition reflecting on the resident-led participatory design process to imagine an inclusive future for the occupation.
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Proposals of how well-located public land could be used for mixed-income homes to build a more just city.
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Sitaara Stodel reclaims the idea of ‘home’ through collages in response to themes of eviction and displacement.
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Collages and poetry by Mmakhotso Lamola responding to spatial injustice in Cape Town with a focus on gender based violence.
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Demonstration of UBU sandbag home building.
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Interactive games and more…
Read More:
DAY 1: Urban Land Justice Gathering